Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur

and gave me lessons and assignments. When i returned to school, Mr. Trobawitz had left to teach in college. Everybody in the class was sad. A bird-beaked, stick-to-the-book, teach-by-rote teacher replaced him. She made us go back to reading in the readers and changed the desks around so that once again we were sitting in rows. I didn't like her and she bored me to death.
    One time our class had a dance. It was a big event for me since i loved to dance. The white kids couldn't dance for nothing. They looked like a bunch of drunken kangaroos, hopping all over the place, out of time with the music. I sat there with my hand over my mouth trying to suppress my laughter. I ached to get out there and show them how to do it. But nobody asked me to dance. I don't think it ever occurred to them, and, if it did, they knew better. Dancing with a "nigger" was surely good for a week or so of teasing. But these whites were not at all out in the open with their racism. It was undercover, like their parents' racism. Anyhow, i just sat there, looking at them flop around until this one kid (i'll never forget his name: Richard Kennedy; he was a poor Irish kid with red hair) came over to where i was sitting and said, "If you give me a dime, i'll dance with you." The sad part of the story is that i almost gave him the dime.
    In the fifth grade, i was put into the class of the school's most notorious battle-ax, Mrs. Hoffler. I knew from the first day it was going to be a long, hot year. The only good thing was that there was another Black kid in the class. The teacher put us in the back, next to each other. His name was David' something, but i called him David Peacan. The teacher was one of those military types and her classes resembled boot camp. We were told where to sit, how to sit, and what kind of notebooks, pens, pencils, etc., to use. She permit ted no talking and gave tons of homework. Her punishment for everything was extra homework. Whenever somebody got caught talking or doing anything she disapproved of, she gave extra home work. When you didn't have your homework, she gave extra home work. And every time she gave you extra homework she wrote your name on the blackboard and refused to remove it until you had turned in the "punishment." By the time i left her class my name covered practically the entire blackboard.
    David and i were her favorite targets. The whole class would be in an uproar, but we were the only ones she saw with our mouths open. The more she rode our backs, the more rebellious i became. I would sit in the back of the class and make jokes about her.
    One day when we were talking and giggling, she came up and pulled David out of his seat by the ear, twisting it until the whole side of his face was red and contorted with pain. I made up my mind right then and there that she wasn't going to do it to me. A few days later, she came after me. When she put her hands on me, i kicked her or hit her. I don't remember which. Anyway, the next thing i knew i was in the principal's office being sent home with a note. I was scared to death my mother would find out, so i signed the note myself and brought it to school the next day. My signature didn't fool anybody. To make a long story short, when my mother found out i confessed everything and i told her about Mrs. Hoffler. I think she had some idea about what was going on because she had seen a change in me. I had always been very quiet and obedient in school. My mother went to the school, talked to the teacher and the principal, and demanded i be moved to another class. It's a good thing she wasn't one of those parents who believe the teacher is always right because i don't know what would have happened. I guess the fact that she's a teacher and is acutely aware of the racism and hostility that Black children are exposed to from the time they enter school had something to do with it.
    I don't remember the name of my other fifth grade teacher except that it was a mile long and began